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XP Professional upgrade: is this possible/legal?

post #1 of 8
8/22/05 at 9:40pm
Thread Starter 
I have a desktop that came with Windows XP Home OEM installed. I'm buying a notebook and I was wondering whether I could install Windows XP Professional Student Upgrade on it. When it asks for your previous CD, would it accept my OEM CD? And would I be able to activate the OS, since I have already activated the Home OEM on my desktop? Is this legal?

Would it be legal considering the two computers won't be used at the same time? What if I uninstalled Windows on my desktop?

I would just use Linux, but some programs I might need to use in college probably won't work on it, so I'm dual-booting.

(Moderators: if this post is against the rules, sorry and please delete it.)
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post #2 of 8
8/22/05 at 11:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hologram
I have a desktop that came with Windows XP Home OEM installed. I'm buying a notebook and I was wondering whether I could install Windows XP Professional Student Upgrade on it. When it asks for your previous CD, would it accept my OEM CD? And would I be able to activate the OS, since I have already activated the Home OEM on my desktop? Is this legal?

Would it be legal considering the two computers won't be used at the same time? What if I uninstalled Windows on my desktop?

I would just use Linux, but some programs I might need to use in college probably won't work on it, so I'm dual-booting.

(Moderators: if this post is against the rules, sorry and please delete it.)
The Microsoft XP Professional Upgrade Kit (retail and Academic Edition) needs a valid install CD from win98/ME/XP. I've done it using my eMachines XP Home restore CD as the qualifying install CD to upgrade my eMachines desktop to XP Pro. I believe that the Upgrade CD does not check to see if the qualifying install CD has been activated with M$. Since the XP Pro Upgrade kit is a Full install version, after using the qualifying install CD you can either upgrade or reformat and install XP Pro from scratch. I recommend the reformat/reinstall option.

How legal is it to use a purchased and installed M$ OS to save money on a second system by purchasing the upgrade kit instead of the full version? I don't know...

The notebook should come with its own XP so upgrade to XP Pro using it and the XP Pro upgrade kit and it will be perfectly legal.
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post #3 of 8
8/23/05 at 1:16am
Thread Starter 
Well I haven't bought the notebook yet and it can come with or without Windows. If I bought Windows (the Professional upgrade) seperately I would save some money. So it seems I can use the upgrade CD to install on the notebook, but would I be able to activate Windows afterwards? If I remember correctly XP slowly loses functionality if you don't activate it.
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post #4 of 8
8/23/05 at 9:08pm
If you do the reformat/reinstall, I believe it will be XP Pro that is activated. I don't think you'll have any problems.
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post #5 of 8
8/23/05 at 9:28pm
I believe colleges sell XP pro for $5? problem sovled? Or do they sell the "upgrade" version of XP pro? in that case, can you buy a copy of windows 2000 AND a copy of XP pro (for a total of $10), and use the win2000 as the system you are upgrading from? I think that would make it totallly legal
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post #6 of 8
8/24/05 at 2:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by unfalliblekrutc
I believe colleges sell XP pro for $5? problem sovled? Or do they sell the "upgrade" version of XP pro? in that case, can you buy a copy of windows 2000 AND a copy of XP pro (for a total of $10)

Wish my college did
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post #7 of 8
8/24/05 at 1:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tobes
Wish my college did
Same here. They sell the upgrade version for $70. You can upgrade from as old as Windows 98, but if I buy that and the upgrade it's not much of a savings compared to just buying the full version.
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post #8 of 8
8/24/05 at 4:31pm
M$ has different types of licenses wether it is for OEM or retail. As far as I have read though I don't know if M$ has changed it recently but the serial numbers M$ uses vary depending on what type of license it is.

Although they follow the same algorithm to generate the serial number it varies slightly so that M$ can identify wether it is OEM or retail. If the serial number belongs to a number sent to an OEM manufacturer (AW, Voodoo, Falcon, Dell or whatever) M$ knows this number and applies the license for OEM which states that you can only use it on THAT machine only and you cannot transfer it to another machine (M$ gets pretty touchy about that).

If you purchase a retail version of Windows you can transfer it to another machine but you must remove it from the other machine. You cannot purchase a single copy and install it on two or more machines unless you purchase a multi-license version(unfortunately, which kinda sucks from the normal consumer point of view). The same goes for upgrades, if you purchase an Operating System as an upgrade (at upgrade price) your old license will no longer be valid. In order to have both you will need to purchase them separately.

There's even a provision that states the maximum limit of machines that can be connected to yours and use some of the services provided by the OS.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/eula.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/eula.mspx

An interesting article on OEM licenses:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/oemeula.htm
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